Pope Benedict’s remarks concerning Jewish individuals in his recent book Jesus of Nazareth (vol. 2) (GET IT HERE! GET IT HERE!) have attracted considerable attention.

For example, the book contains a passage which some have interpreted as saying that the Church should not seek to convert Jewish individuals. It is not at all clear to me that this is what the Pope is saying. The passage is complex and bears more than one interpretation. So let’s dive in and see what we can make of it.

The beginning of the discussion (which is not usually quoted by people commenting on the text) is this. Starting on p. 44 of the book, Pope Benedict writes:

Like many bloggers, I’ve been getting requests for information on the situation with Father John Corapi. I don’t know him personally, and I don’t have any insider information, so that leaves me in the same position as everyone else: trying to figure out the situation based on the information that is available.

In the years I have been maintaining my personal blog (www.jimmyakin.org), I have uploaded something over 4700 posts (according to current statistics). This makes it a bit hard to remember everything I’ve put up.

Fortunately, I have the memories of readers to remind me, and one reader in particular has reminded me that there are some posts that I had forgotten to include in the Annual Lent Fight that I uploaded yesterday.

These posts concern, in particular, the Church’s laws concerning Ash Wednesday and its laws regarding fasting.

As a result, I’ve done some link updating.

Since Ash Wednesday is a day of both fast and abstinence, I have chosen to repeat here the relevant links, along...READ MORE

In my previous post I said we’d look more closely at Pope Benedict’s statement in his new book concerning Jewish people and how they are not collectively responsible for the death of Christ. We will get to that, but in view of the fact that tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, I decided to use today’s post as an occasion to provide information about Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, which follows it.

Over on my personal blog (jimmyakin.org) I have hosted for many years a collection of posts on this subject. Together, they are known as the Annual Lent Fight—because many of these questions have been disputed (at times harshly).

This is because there are a lot of popular ideas (read: legends) out...READ MORE

This was the book he had started before his election to the papacy and which, in spite of the burdens of his office, he determined to press on with.

Because he’s now pope, the book is attracting vastly more attention than if he had become a private theologian at the end of John Paul II’s reign, and as with everything pope—the press is determined to make the most of it, even when they don’t have the facts quite right.

Frances Kissling, who made her career and her reputation by sticking a finger in the Catholic Church’s eye for decades as head of the inaccurately named “Catholics for Choice,” has written a piece for the Washington Post in which she argues that abortion leaders are inflexible, change-resistant ideologues who are stuck in a timewarp and are using outdated, myth-based arguments that have caused them to lose ground, ground she says they cannot recover, and that they risk losing the abortion fight entirely.

Let’s hope she’s right!

Especially about that inflexible change resistance leading to losing the abortion fight entirely. That’s the best part.

There’s a story that’s been percolating around some quarters for the last few days, but until recently it hasn’t breached the English-speaking news net. It’s likely to.

The nub of the story is this: In 1970 the young(er) theologian Joseph Ratzinger signed a letter to the German conference of bishops suggesting that the Church reconsider the practice of clerical celibacy as the norm for the Latin Church.

Given the MSM’s fixation on the Catholic Church and sex—and particularly its dislike of clerical celibacy—this story could potentially gain traction.

A former Roman Catholic priest who left the church to marry his girlfriend after the two were photographed embracing on a South Florida beach is getting a new TV show.

Alberto Cutie (KOO’-tee-ay) announced Tuesday he will host the daily talk show “Father Albert” on Fox stations. A Fox spokeswoman says the show will be aired later this year in cities including New York and Los Angeles. It will be picked up nationwide if it does well.

GAH!

Okay, now that you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, note that this is only a program in local markets. More detail is provided by The Hollywood Reporter:

Father Alberto Cutie, a bestselling author of self-help books...READ MORE

About Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant pastor or seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith. Eventually, he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is a Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to This Rock magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."